Welcome to the Management Department’s annual newsletter. I am writing to share a few of the Management Department’s accomplishments over the last academic year (2024-2025). We served over 8500 business students and provided programs for 1347 undergraduate students majoring in management which includes emphases in entrepreneurship (526), human resources (115), and general management (706). Our Masters in Science in Global Business Development also graduated 17 students.
I am delighted to share that in 2024-2025, our entrepreneurship program was ranked by U.S. News and World Report (2025) as the 14th best program offered by public universities. Similarly, the international business program (of which we are academic partners) was ranked by the U.S. News and World Report as the 6th best program offered by public universities.
Management Department Advisory Board Highlights:
With a highly engaged advisory board, chaired by Jennifer Freet (‘11), we have expanded to 13 members which includes adding one new board member this year: Jackie Reed (’15), CEO of T & S Restaurants.
In addition to our Fall and Spring Advisory Board meetings, several additional Board and community engagement events took place this year including a SDSU football tailgate (Fall 2024), a summer Board Mixer (July 2025), and a workshop on AI and Entrepreneurship (August 2025).
The department hosted a “Hot-Off-The-Press” event held at WD-40 in March of 2025. This was a business community engagement event in which Management faculty presented their latest research findings on everything from AI hiring to disruptive innovation. The event was a huge success with approximately 55 participants comprising of business professionals, SDSU faculty, and SDSU staff. Many thanks to all the board members who made this happen, to the Wendy Gillispie Center for sponsoring attendees, and to Stan Sewitch for his generous matching donation.
The Management Department curriculum is unique in the Fowler College of Business as we require our students to do an internship in order to complete their degree. We believe that an internship will not only help students to find a job when they graduate but that it will increase students’ career readiness, interpersonal skills, and confidence. During Spring and Summer of 2025, the department embarked on creating a website dedicated to our internship program: https://business.sdsu.edu/departments/management/internships. This effort was led by Mike Sloan (full-time adjunct faculty) supported by myself and several Management Advisory Board members (Rachelle Snook, Mary Lynch, and Cathy Zumberge).
UPBI Event, April 2025
A distinctive unpaid internship that incorporates social impact into the Management internship course is the Urban Poverty Business Initiative (UPBI) where students provide individual business consulting to small, women, and minority businesses. Mentors from the Small Business Association are also on the team to assist students and business. In Spring of 2025, we had nine interns participate in this unique internship program. SDSU’s Provost, William Tong, was the guest speaker at this year’s event.
Some notable companies that provided internships in Summer 2025 included: Qualcomm, William Sonoma, Cintas, Sony Interactive Entertainment, PepsiCo-Frito Lay, US Navy, Northrop Grumman, Gallo Wine, and Volvo.
MSGBD students and faculty advisor, Martina Musteen, at Logicem in in Barranquilla, Columbia
Led by Martina Musteen, the Class '25 of the students in the Master of Science in Global Business Development (MSGBD) students traveled to Barranquilla, Colombia, for their capstone consulting project. The project involved a local logistics company, Logicem, seeking to enter the U.S. market. During the year-long MSGBD program, in addition to their capstone project, the MSGBD students worked on projects with 8 different companies based in Armenia, Georgia, the UK, Norway, Vietnam, and the US. The student cohort will participate in a commencement ceremony on August 18.
As a result of a team project in the “International Entrepreneurship and Business Development” class (MGT 748) taught by Martina Musteen (Professor of Management), Eatkinda company (based in New Zealand) successfully launches its American debut of allergen-free cauliflower-based ice cream in 2025.
Student and Alumni Spotlights:
The SDSU Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) chapter had 17 students compete at the 2025 California SHRM HR Case Competition at CSU San Bernardino (April 11-12, 2025). SDSU SHRM had teams that placed 3rd and 4th in the state at the competition, respectively.
The SDSU SHRM chapter received the 2025 Superior Merit Award from national SHRM.
The SDSU SHRM chapter sent 8 students to the SHRM California Legislative & HR Leadership Summit (April 23-25, 2025) in Sacramento.
The SDSU SHRM chapter sent 26 students to the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition (June 29 - July 2, 2025) in San Diego. The chapter had two officers who were speakers at the SHRM conference - Cooper Craven, and alum, Vaishnavi Sridhar.
The SDSU SHRM chapter had an officer, Tamar Hazon, receive a national SHRM academic scholarship for the 2025-2026 academic year.
2025 Annual SHRM conference and Exposition
Sammy Chang was selected as the 2025 Outstanding Student in Management and named Management faculty Dwarka Chakravarty as her Most Influential Professor.
Joswe Chavez was selected as the 2025 Outstanding Student in General Business and named Management adjunct faculty Dan Eaton as his Most Influential Professor.
Urmi Dave was selected as the 2025 Outstanding Student in the MBA Program and named Gabi Eissa as her Most Influential Professor.
A recent management (entrepreneurship) graduate, Mark Heine (’25), nominated by Kimberly King (MGT adjunct faculty) won the SDSU Irwin Zahn Spirit of Innovation Award and was recognized at graduation as well as took home a cash prize of $25,000.
Recent management (entrepreneurship) graduate Samantha Child (’25) was selected among 560,000 applications for two openings as a space knowledge capture intern at NASA. Samantha Child Story
Vinny Wilson (’22, Management/Entrepreneurship) in July of 2024 launches his first entrepreneurial venture: No Cap! Soda Pop. His product is a unique no-calorie, no-sugar and no-caffeine soda with flavors such as Sour Watermelon, Strawberry Dream and Bussin’ Berry.
The management department faculty continues to win grants and awards for teaching, research, and service.
Ami Doshi - 2024 Fowler Teaching Excellence AwardAmi Doshi (MGT adjunct faculty) received the 2024 Fowler Teaching Excellence Award
Yue Song was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in Spring 2025. Congratulations Yue!
In summer of 2025, we welcomed our newest management faculty member: Gianni de Bruyn (Strategy).
The MGT department hired its first Clinical Scholar, Zeki Pagda Ph.D., who will be joining us this Fall. Zeki is a former SDSU lecturer who is returning to us after spending some time at Rutgers University.
Amy Randel was chosen as the Sprouse Family Endowed Professor and will serve in this capacity for four years.
Jeremy Bernerth and Beth Chung both received Fowler College of Business Research Fellowships and will be receiving this award for two years.
Martina Musteen who runs the “Live Case” Program in her Seminar in World Business Environment class (MGT 710) received the NASBITE International Program Excellence Award for 2025. The “Live Case” program was honored as an outstanding and innovative program in the area of international education, counseling, and training.
Martina Musteen was an Invited Keynote Speaker at the International Entrepreneurship (IE) Odense Conference hosted by the University of Southern Denmark.
Mujtaba Ahsan received a graduate fee grant.
California Entrepreneurship Educator’s Conference – April 2025
Under the leadership of Mujtaba Ahsan, the Lavin Entrepreneurship Center hosted the eleventh annual California Entrepreneurship Educator’s Conference (CEEC) in April 2025.
Martina Musteen’s paper was nominated for the Best Research Method Paper Award at the annual meeting of the Academy of International Business (AIB) in Louisville, Kentucky.
Parisa Haim Faridian’s paper won the Entrepreneurship Research Paper of the Year (Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship)
Lori Ryan is retiring this year after 24 years of dedicated service at SDSU. Don’t worry, you will still see Lori as she will be teaching every Spring as part of the Faculty Early Retirement Program.
Management faculty continue to be prolific with their research and editorships. Management faculty serve as members of 20+ journal editorial boards and contribute as Editors or Associate Editors for several prominent journals. Some new editorial appointments include:
Taekjin Shin: Editor of Corporate Governance: An International Review
Amy Randel: Guest Editor of a special issue of Group & Organization Management regarding leadership and inclusion.
Parisa Haim Faridian: Editorial Review Board of Industry & Innovation
Mujtaba Ahsan: Guest Editor for a special issue of Long Range Planning “Entrepreneurship and SMEs in Times of Geopolitical Crisis”
Mujtaba Ahsan: Guest Editor for special issue of Journal of International Management. “Doing business in Africa: Navigating opportunities and challenges in Africa's emerging markets”
The department faculty have collectively published over 100 articles in the last seven years with 16 of them published or accepted for publication this year. Below is a list of these articles:
Below is a list of these articles:
Musteen, M., Liu, X., & Chakravarty, D. 2025. Abandonment of Cross-border Acquisitions: The Role of Target Country Context. Accepted at Journal of World Business.
De Bruyn, G. & Freed, P. G. (2025). Workforce sleep and corporate innovation. Research Policy, 54, 105191.
Chung, B., G., & Shore, L. (In press). Why Went Wrong with DEI Initiatives? Research on Social Issues in Management.
Chung, B. G., Shore, L., Wiegand, J., & Xu, J. (online, 2025). The effects of inclusive psychological climate, leader inclusion, and workgroup inclusion on trust and organizational identification. Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: An International Journal.
Haim Faridian, P., Neubaum, D. O., & Terjesen, S. (2024). Untangling the Complexity of Innovativeness in New Ventures: the Interplay between Causal Entrepreneurial Approach and Social Capital. Small Business Economics Journal.
Song, Y., Gnyawali, D., & Qian, L. (2024). From early curiosity to space wide web: The emergence of the small satellite innovation ecosystem. Research Policy, 53(2), 104932.
Powell, K.S., Lim, E., Alexandra, V. et al. (2025). Japan–US differences and R&D investments in response to performance feedback. Asian Bus Management24, 218–248.
Francis, J. & Chakravarty, D. 2025. Business Consulting and SME Performance: Unraveling the Role of Absorptive Capacity. Journal of Small Business Strategy. 35(2): 35-51.
Eissa, G., & Lester, S. W. (2025). Supervisor to employee bottom-line mentality: The mediating role of moral disengagement and the moderating roles of organizational justice and self-efficacy. Journal of Business Research, 189, 115-206.
Bernerth, J, Carter, M., McLarty, B., Cole, M, & Eissa, G. (conditional acceptance). The (In)Congruence Effects of Supervisor Bottom-line Mentality Identity and Reputation on Group Performance: A Moderated Mediation Model. Human Relations.
Istipliler, B. Ahsan, M., Mole, K., Adomako, S., Gyensare, M., & Tang, J. (2025). Entrepreneurial Alertness in Dynamic Environments: Mediating Pathways to Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance. British Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12907
Ahsan, M., Gyensare, M. A., Adomako, S., & Zheng, C. (2025). Chronic health issues and entrepreneurship: Exploring the role of grit, bricolage and illness uncertainty on venture performance. International Small Business Journal, 43(3), 246-273.
Zhu, F, Adomako, S., Donbesuur, F., Ahsan, M., Shinnar, R., & Sadeghi, A. (2024). Entrepreneurial Passion, Alertness, and Opportunity Recognition: Affective-Cognitive Interactions in Dynamic Environments. International Small Business Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/02662426241298176
Adomako, S., Shenkar, O., Liu, X., Amankwah-Amoah, J., & Ahsan, M. (2024). Doing business in Africa: Navigating opportunities and challenges in Africa’s emerging markets. Journal of International Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intman.2024.101189
Wiegand, J. P. & Morgan, T. J. (2025). Strive to fit: Person, vocation, and organization strivings’ impact on employee engagement and job performance. Personality and Individual Differences.
2025 Management Department Summer Picnic
We look forward to an exciting year as we continue to add new curriculum and new faculty to our department. Our enthusiastic engagement with our students, alumni, faculty, advisory board members, and the community is at the heart of who we are as we emphasize the “human side of business” in the Management Department.
